‘Beauty and the Beast’ Trailer Comparison Reveals Striking Similarities to the Animated Film

Disney dropped the first trailer for Beauty and the Beast this week, and the internet promptly exploded. While Disney’s new trend of mining its classic animated properties for live-action remakes has resulted in some swell hits like Cinderella and The Jungle Book, Beauty and the Beast is, by and large, the big one. This is not only a universally beloved film, it’s one that is deeply ingrained in the minds of today’s millennials and Gen-Y-ers—aka the vast majority of moviegoing audiences. So there’s a lot riding on director Bill Condon’s live-action take on this classic.

The debut trailer seemed…strange. It was enticing to be sure, but the structure of the thing felt pretty far removed from most trailers we see nowadays, with only the tiniest of glimpses at the film’s star, Emma Watson. Regardless, it did a great job of using Alan Menken‘s unforgettable score and some familiar imagery to conjure feelings of nostalgia, and now YouTube user studiOrbit has crafted a comparison video that shows the live-action and animated versions side-by-side.

Image via Disney

It’s interesting to see how the setting and production design matches up with the animated film. Granted, this could be the first of many such comparison videos once more trailers and then the finished film are released, which could get tiresome, but for now it’s a neat way to honor what came before and be excited for what’s coming.

Topping that movie—which landed a Best Picture Oscar nomination—is going to be a tall order, but Condon knows his way around musicals (he wrote Chicago and directed Dreamgirls) and set pieces (he directed the final two Twilight films), and he assembled a terrific cast that includes Watson, Dan Stevens, Luke Evans, Josh Gad, Ewan McGregor, Emma Thompson, Gugu Mbatha-Raw, Stanley Tucci, Kevin Kline, and Ian McKellen. As someone who adores the original, I remain really curious/excited about this live-action redo, especially in the wake of the stellar Cinderella and The Jungle Book.

So take a look at the similarities between in the video below, followed by the tonally very different first trailer for the 1991 film. Disney’s Beauty and the Beast opens in theaters on March 17th.

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